MY LAST NAME IS WELSH in origin. Two years ago I visited Wales
for the first time. It was an interesting trip, but I felt no siren
call to "come home.'' I returned to America with no sense
that I needed to hyphenate my nationality, or learn the
ancient language of Wales, or read more of Dylan Thomas
than I already have. I am an American, and my ancestors left
Wales several centuries ago for a better life and a new
identity.

But that was then. This is now: The Los Angeles Times reports
an 18-year-old high school student brought hamburgers to
class in response to a school assignment requesting samples of
each family's favorite food. But the student, John Concordia,
says he was shocked when his teacher told him "This is not
your food.'' When Concordia wrote "American'' in the
ethnicity box of a school emergency notification card, he was
told by a counselor: "No, you're Filipino.''

Funny, but Concordia didn't think he "looked Filipino.'' He
considered himself an American. "You strive so hard to be
an American,'' he told the newspaper, "but all the time
there's reminders that you're not. People kept telling me I was
a Filipino, but I really didn't know what one was, so I had to
search for it.''

Hasn't this young man been subjected to a form of racism?
What he was told certainly is un-American. It elevates the
group over the whole. Instead of our national motto, "out of
many, one,'' we are rapidly becoming "out of one, many.''
The strength of America is not in its diversity, as President
Clinton and other multiculturalists regularly tell us. The
strength of America is in its unity, its oneness. A rope is
strongest when its many strands are tightly linked. A nation is
strongest when those of many origins see themselves as
Americans and not people of dual citizenship and dual
loyalties.

There are political points to be made by pitting us against
each other. People have access to federal resources if they are
part of a victim class. Their political clout is increased if they
can join groups and petition politicians for a redress of their
grievances, promising votes to the candidate or party that
offers the most goodies. Who wants to be an American when
hyphenating your ancestry might win you attention from the
big media, which are always looking for the next controversy
and new opportunities to attack and tax those whites with
European, Anglo-Saxon ancestry, which they hope will soon
assume minority status.

I recall something the late comedian Sam Levinson said about
growing up poor in Brooklyn. Levinson said everybody in his
immigrant neighborhood was poor, but they didn't know it
until the social worker came by and told them.

Concordia would not have thought of himself as "Filipino,''
with a list of grievances against others, unless someone had
told him. The system re-made him into its image. Seeing
himself now as a Filipino and not an American, Concordia,
The Times reports, "felt nothing but self-loathing when he
heard Filipinos denigrated as dog-eaters whose women were
mail-order brides, and whose children cheated in Little
League baseball. But soon he realized it was impossible to
ignore his heritage'' -- who made it impossible? -- "and he
began learning about Filipino history and culture through a
nonprofit community service agency.'' In New York, one of
those agencies is called Diversity Resource Collaborative.

The diversity proselytizers seek to divide, not unite. They're
trying to create a "divided states of America,'' not strengthen
these United States. Their goal is to tear down, not build up.

Concordia dropped out of school and is planning to take his
first trip to the Philippines. He would have been better off
staying in school and learning what it means to be an
American.

This is the bridge to the 21st century over which liberals wish
to drive us. Taken to the extreme, America might come to
resemble Bosnia, Northern Ireland or the Middle East.
Divided we fall. Only in unity do we
stand. B>